Miscellaneous Ficlets
by MarbleGlove
Summary: This is a collection of miscellaneous ficlets that I'm posting mostly for my own archiving purposes. But I still hope you enjoy some of them.
1. Harry Potter: Defense, Offense and Mice

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. I'm just having a bit of fun with the universe and characters.

A/N: This was written in response to the prompt:  
>Harry Potter, Luna Lovegood, weapon<p>

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><p><strong>D<strong><strong>efense,<strong> <strong>Offense,<strong> <strong>and<strong> <strong>Mice<strong>****************

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><p>At the same time that rumors had started about a new generation of Death Eaters planning an attack on the 10th Anniversary of Voldemort's death, Luna Lovegood started carrying around two white mice in her pockets.<p>

"It's only prudent," Luna explained in her soft voice. "You never know when you might need a mouse. And it's better to have two so that you can share. Would you like one, Harry?"

"Uh, no, thank you, Luna."

He had other things to worry about, what with security for him and his family at the celebratory feast the Ministry of Magic was hosting in his honor. It was a good thing he had worried, because when the neo-Death Eaters attacked, Harry had a portkey handy to send the children home. He and Ginny stayed and fought.

He couldn't leave with the children, and even as the green light of a death curse came at him, he knew he couldn't have made any other decision than to come to the celebration and fight his hardest.

Apparently it wasn't his time to die yet, though, because a gently tossed white mouse intercepted the deadly green spell.

The spell fulfilled it's purpose and the mouse died.

"Mice are so very useful," Luna smiled faintly.


	2. Firefly: Making Room for More Sinning

Disclaimer: I don't own Firefly. Long Live Joss Whedon!

A/N: This was written in response to the prompt:  
>Firefly, Book &amp; Jayne, hearing Jayne's sort-of confession<p>

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><p><strong>Making Room for More Sinning<strong>

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><p>"Hey, Book. You are just the guy I need. That girl over there told me that she don't walk out with no one who got no religion. They ain't pure enough or something. I told her I was plenty pure, but she wanted proof. So how does this purifying thing work? It's all 'Forgive me, father, I have sinned,' right? And that makes room for more sinning, I guess?"<p>

"Not... exactly. You are supposed to actually regret your sins. And then stop doing them."

"Well, that don't make no sense at all. If I want to take the girl out back, why would she want someone to take her out back who don't want to?"

"I think I'll leave you to ponder that question by yourself."


	3. Stargate: No Freedom Here

Disclaimer: I don't own Stargate Atlantis.

A/N: This was written for the prompt:  
>SG-1, Tealc, Regina Spektor's official music video for the song <span>Samson<span>

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><p><strong>No Freedom Here<strong>

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><p>Drey'auc's hair had fascinated Teal'c since he had first seen her among Apophis' Jaffa. It was like feathers and it flew in the wind. As a warrior in training, his own hair was shaved to prevent endangering him. Hair was too easy to grab in a fight. It could be used to control a person.<p>

Teal'c wanted to sink his fingers into Drey'auc's hair, but not to control it, just to see it curl around his fingers. It was free in a way that nothing else was.

When he became Bra'tac's apprentice, in training to become First Prime to their God, Drey'auc agreed to marry him. He loved her and he was loyal to his God.

When he made First Prime, though, he was already beginning to question his God.

He whispered his fears only once, into his wife's hair. It had been a long day, a hard day, and he had come home to wrap his arms around his wife and stand in the evening breeze, feeling her hair fly free against his chest. He whispered his worries and his doubts into her hair and thought of freedom.

When they went in, after he had eaten but before he went to bed, she brought him a pair of scissors.

"Why have you brought me scissors, Drey'auc?" He had been confused, nothing more.

"I want you to cut my hair short. It is not right to love anyone more than our god."

He had been silent for a long moment and they had simply stared at one another. Then he had positions her before him and carefully cut her feathered hair and let the locks falls to the ground.

There would be no flying free here.


	4. Numb3rs: Intersecting in Nature

Disclaimer: I don't own Numb3rs, alas, or the series would have gone in a significantly different direction.

A/N: This was written in response to the prompt:  
>Numb3rs, CharlieIan Edgerton, camping

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><p><strong><strong><strong>Naturally<strong> <strong>Intersecting<strong> <strong>in<strong> <strong>Nature<strong>****************

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><p>They were on very different trajectories. Not directly opposing but closer to perpendicular than parallel. They came from different angles and headed in different directions.<p>

Charlie was an academic who disliked violence and liked to know what he was getting into before he got into it. He wanted to understand the world and he math allowed him to do so.

Ian, on the other hand, was a government agent and a military veteran, who didn't need to understand the world in order to shape it in ways that he and his superiors considered best.

But, and this was the important part, they were on the same plane. They weren't skewed.

Charlie and Ian both knew good guys from bad guys, and they struggled to keep the good guys safe and the bad guys controlled.

And if they weren't skewed and they weren't parallel, then they were destined to intersect somewhere.

Camping and hiking outdoors was where they intersected. It was out in nature where Charlie saw patterns and processes and Ian saw tracks and paths, that they looked at each other and saw beauty.


	5. Stargate Atlantis: Proof of Beauty

Disclaimer: I don't own Stargate Atlantis or any of the Stargate franchise.

A/N: This was written in response to the prompt:  
>Stargate Atlantis, any scientist, Science is the poetry of reality<p>

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><p><strong>Proof of Beauty<strong>

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><p>Trapped in Atlantis without access to regular entertainment venues, the members of the Atlantis expedition make due.<p>

A few bands of various styles start and perform gigs in a "music room".

Another room has been dedicated as an art museum. It has a collection made up of pieces that has been collected off world or created by expedition members.

A bit of server space is dedicated to a shared library that includes original works of writing as well as whatever e-books various members could exhibit.

The social scientists moderate most of these efforts.

They keep the venues organized but not quality controlled. The rule is, while you can mock and taunt any artistic attempt (expedition members being expected to defend their own and give back as good as they get in any fight whether in mortal combat or discussion of artistic styles), no moderator will say what is or is not art.

When Rodney McKay makes a post to the poetry section of their library, multiple people perk up immediately at this wonderful chance to mock him.

If it had been bad poetry, the soldiers would have been delighted. If it had been good poetry, they'd probably have been a bit disappointed actually.

What it was, was a series of equations.

One of the moderators went to ask him to shift it to the regular science server. He had posted it either very late at night or very early in the morning and was most likely a accident.

She found him talking with another other scientists, both of them looking exhausted and holding their coffee mugs like salvation.

One of them was saying, "Is beautiful. Elegant and perfect."

McKay actually blushes. "Thanks. It just, I needed to clear my brain a bit, so I just, it fits together so well, doesn't it?"

"Is proof that the world is beautiful."

"So you think it was okay to post as poetry? I was tired and it _is_ poetry, but..."

"It is poetry. I will post my favorite proof tonight. Is from grade school, so very simple, but so elegant you will weep."

"Then I will post this one from undergrad, absolutely hilarious. It will make you laugh."

She leaves it for a day, and sure enough two more posts appear in the poetry section of the library containing equations. Apparently not an accident.

She looks at them for a bit and they still look like incomprehensible.

She gets one of the other social scientists who has a math background to explain the equation to her and while she only vaguely follows his explanation, she's impressed by the softening in his eyes as he looks at the equations. He looks like he is looking at something beautiful.

She's a linguist and a polyglot and this text means nothing to her. She wonders how hard it would be to learn this language so that she could read this proof of beauty in the original.


	6. White Collar: Captured

Disclaimer: I don't own White Collar.

A/N: This was written in response to the prompt: White Collar, Peter, regret

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><p><strong><strong><strong>The<strong> <strong>difference<strong> <strong>between<strong> <strong>captured<strong> <strong>the<strong> <strong>event<strong> <strong>and<strong> <strong>captured<strong> <strong>the<strong> <strong>status<strong>****************************************

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><p>Capturing Neal had been part of Peter's job. It had been for the good of society. And it had been a surprising amount of fun.<p>

He doesn't regret chasing Neal and he doesn't regret capturing him.

But sometimes, when Neal is fidgeting, like a hooded falcon or a caged mockingbird, Peter regrets that Neal is captured.


	7. XMen First Class: Keep the Change

Disclaimer: My only rights to the X-Men universe come from First Sale rights and Fair Use. Yay, Fair Use!

A/N: This was written in response to the prompt: X-Men, Erik, coins

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><p><strong><strong><strong>Keep<strong> <strong>the<strong> <strong>Change<strong>************

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><p>People in concentration camps didn't use currency. Neither did lab rats being experimented on.<p>

Erik knew how money worked, he wasn't an idiot and he hadn't been all *that* young when his family was taken, but it wasn't anything he had ever used himself.

But he used a coin when Dr. Schmidt offered him it to him and told him to move it. The first time, he only managed to move it after Schmidt killed his mother.

From then on, whenever Erik struggled to do as Schmidt said, Schmidt would offer him a coin. It was a reminder to work harder, to work faster, or else...

After the war, after the everything, after he figured out how to live in the world, he took a dollar that he had earned and purchased a soda pop.

He threw up when the cashier gave him his change.


	8. XMen First Class: Extinction Event

Disclaimer: I don't own any part of the X-Men franchise (except for some first sale rights to some excellent comic books.)

A/N: This was written in response to the prompt:  
>X-Men First Class, author's choice, mercy died on a desolate stretch of beach when one of Moira's deflected bullets killed Charles Xavier<p>

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><p><strong><strong><strong>The<strong> <strong>Next<strong> <strong>Extinction<strong> <strong>Event<strong>****************

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><p>The balance between rage and serenity, Erik thought, shouldn't feel like this. Rage, he knew, though it had been a very long time since it had reached this peak. But this was not the serenity that Charles' had shown him.<p>

Charles had helped him remember a time when all was well with his world, when he had been warm and happy and loved and nothing needed changing.

This time, collapsed on a beach in Cuba, cradling Charles' body in his arms, he felt serenity of a different type. It was cold and empty with the knowledge that nothing he could do could possibly fix this.

This cold despair was a still point around which the rage circled like a growing storm. The longer he sat there, the stronger it got. The still point more colder and more leaden, the rage faster and hotter.

...

It wasn't until much later that Erik realized what he had done.

After pure physical exhaustion had finally knocked him out.

After he'd managed to get to civilization and read the newspapers.

That was when he realized that his power wasn't to control metal, as he had thought previously. His power was to control magnetic fields. A suitably strong magnetic field stops hearts, a lesser one stops electricity, and a more pervasive one shifts the rotation of the very planet.

Charles would not have wanted an ice age as his funeral pyre, but Magento thought it only suitable. Having killed such a great light as Charles, those who survived must do so in darkness.


	9. Thor: Practice Makes Perfect

Disclaimer: I don't own the movie Thor or the comic book series Thor, but I would note that nobody owns the Norse mythology. It was around a long time before anyone came up with the idea of copyright.

A/N: This was in response to the prompt: Thor, Thor/Loki, it gets easier being evil

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><p><strong>Practice Makes Perfect<strong>

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><p>Father and Mother (and a whole lot of other people, too) were always chastising Thor to remember his strength. He had to be careful not to break his things. Breaking things was bad.<p>

Loki had learned the lesson alongside Thor without having to be constantly reminded of it. If breaking things was bad, so creating things, he thought, must be good.

He spent the majority of his life trying to create things. He created spells and found knowledge and birthed children.

And yet it was never enough.

Nobody understood his spells and Thor waves off any desire to learn magic. Thor's eyes glazed over in boredom when he spoke of new knowledge. Even Odin All-father recoiled from his children and called them monsters.

It isn't until he decides to give up, to just be the evil that his *adopted* *kidnapping* *not*-father must expect that he realizes that maybe he had been wrong all along.

When he tries to destroy something, people pay attention. Thor pays attention. When he's explaining his latest plot, Thor watches him with attentive eyes and argues with him point by point.

He still doesn't like destroying things, he wants to create. It's his nature to come up with new and interesting things, but he's learning. And each time he works to destroy, he gets so much positive reinforcement.

Destruction doesn't come to him naturally, but he practices. And each time it gets easier. Each time it gets better.

One day, he thinks, he will be so destructive, so bad, so *evil*, that Thor will stay with him.


	10. Sherlock: Paying the Rent

Disclaimer: I don't own Sherlock BBC. However, I would note that no one owns the Sherlock Holmes universe anymore. Yay for aging out of copyright!

A/N: This was in answer to the prompt: Sherlock BBC, Sherlock, it's a game of chance.

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><p><strong>Paying<strong> <strong>the<strong> <strong>Rent<strong>********

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><p>Sherlock glared at the numbers on the lottery ticket. He'd only bought for a case because he needed to see what the scratched off material looked like under a fingernail.<p>

Winning didn't matter. Murder did. Anyway, the chance of actually winning one of these ludicrous games was infinitesimal.

And yes, someone somewhere had to win it at some point, but the chances of him winning it now were so very low, unless... "Mycroft, piss off. I can pay my own rent."


	11. Sherlock: Anchor

Disclaimer: I don't own Sherlock BBC, but I would point out that no one owns the Sherlock Holmes characters or stories anymore. They have aged into the public domain. Yay!

A/N: This was written in response to the prompt:  
>Sherlock BBC, MoriartyJohn, power

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><p><strong><strong><strong>Anchor<strong>****

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><p>At first the only sound was their harsh breathing. They had reached a stalemate.<p>

Doctor Watson held Jim Moriarty immobilized. Moran was knocked unconscious and the detective was off looking at Jim's latest gift to him. For now, it was just Moriarty and Watson. Moriarty couldn't move but Watson couldn't afford to let him go, either.

Jim wasn't one for physical violence and he knew that he couldn't overpower the good doctor. Instead he murmured vicious truths into Watson's ear.

Jim told him that he was a failure. The military didn't want him as a soldier any more, the clinic didn't want him as a doctor. His parents hadn't loved him as a son, and his sister thought he was awful as a brother. His flatmate hadn't even considered trying to protect Watson.

"Well? Aren't you going to defend yourself?"

"Moriarty..." Watson paused and then sighed, "Jim, after living with Sherlock, did you really think you could find any weakness that I didn't already know about? But I also know my strengths."

Jim shrieked and thrashed. This wasn't fair. He hadn't been pinned like this since had had been a child. If he couldn't break free physically, he should have been able to break this man intellectually and emotionally.

Watson still held on. His arms were wrapped around Jim, strong and warm, his chest pressed up against Jim's back. When he finally calmed down again, their breaths fell into natural sync.

He was tired. He had been tired for so very long. And there was a comfort to having gone his length, done everything he could, and still find himself held tight in another's arms. His mind seemed calm for the first time in, oh, in years. No plans, no words, no orders, no need for any of them. Watson kept him anchored to the here and now.

He fell asleep, tired but warm, and slept more deeply than he had since he was a child.

When he woke up in goal, it took him not quite an hour to break out, his thoughts whirled like a tempest, and Watson's quiet power to anchor the world was just another reason to hate Sherlock.


	12. Stargate Atlantis: Bad Luck

Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate Atlantis or any part of the Stargate franchise, alas. I'm just playing around with it for a bit.

A/N: This was written in response to the prompt:  
>Stargate Atlantis, Rodney, any. They pissed him off, and now they're having to deal with a string of "inexplicable" malfunctions.<p>

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><p><strong>B<strong><strong>ad<strong> <strong>Luck<strong>********

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><p>So he was interested in this cute little scientist and was explaining that she should be interested in him back. After all, he was there to protect her. She should be grateful to him. If she wanted to be protected then she had better show a bit of gratitude.<p>

"Go away, or I'll report you."

"For what? I'm just being nice." He smiled. He hadn't laid a hand on her.

She glared. "I'll report you to McKay!"

He rolled his eyes at that as she skittered away.

Come on, like that was a real threat. Rodney McKay was protective of his science department, but everyone knows that he's all bark and no bite. Sure McKay is always ranting and raving about this, that, or the other thing, but that guy never does anything.

Anyways, he knew how to stand at attention and have insults hurled at him. Just ignore it and it stopped and he could get back to doing his job.

They were trapped in another universe. He'd give her some time to think about her options and she'd come around.

McKay didn't even say anything to him the next time they passed in the hallway so he figured maybe the little cutie had already come around to his way of thinking. Maybe he'd just visit her room tonight and get a bit of something nice.

Unfortunately, one of the sliding doors malfunctioned and closed on him when he turned into that corridor.

It pinned him in the door frame and he supposed he should be grateful that it didn't squish him entirely, but now he couldn't reach his communicator and it was late at night and he couldn't even take a deep enough breath to really yell.

Spending the night pinned in a door frame when he had been hoping for a booty call was really unpleasant. His shower understood all too well though, since it only gave him cold water.

The next night was spent pinned in the doorway at the other end of the corridor. And the following day was worse for being mocked by the other soldiers and then poked and prodded by the doctor to see if maybe the issue was with his gene rather than with the doors.

Two nights without sleep were worth a bit of soothing of the feminine kind, so when he saw the cutie he was wooing in the lunchroom, he figured he'd go over. The fact that the ancients apparently had some sort of disposal chutes that opened up in the floor was apparently quite interesting to everyone else and, after checking that Simmons was okay down there, they discussed how it could be used as a defense if the city were ever occupied.

When he finally got up an hour later, his scientist had apparently finished her leisurely meal and gotten back to work.

The next time he saw her, he was just walking down the hallway when suddenly the sprinkler system right over him turned on. It was just as cold as his showers had been lately.

She was like a bad luck charm or something.

He was better off without her because every time he got within fifty feet of her, something awful happened.


	13. Batman: The Eggman

Disclaimer: I don't own any part of the Batman franchise, alas. I'm just having a bit of fair use fun.

A/N #1: This was written in response to the prompt: Any, any, GoldfishPoopGang from TV Tropes  
>I decided that this really had to be answered with: Batman, The Eggman, Goldfish Poop Gang<p>

A/N #2 : I've never actually seen any of The Eggman episodes, but the premise is so ludicrous that I couldn't resist using it for this trope.)

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><p><strong>The Eggman<strong>

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><p>Before Egghead had become The Eggman, he had been brought to Gotham city by the Wayne Corporation to work at economic think tank. He had been sure he could fix the problems that Gotham had faced. But Wayne Corporatino had refused to implement his plans eggs-actly as he'd devised them. They thought they were too egg-stream. wanting to make changes. Wanting them to be "practical."<p>

He'd egged their car after that meeting.

When the Waynes had been killed by a petty crook and the think tank had been shut down, he'd kept his sunny side up. For a while.

He'd tried to plead his case to the board of the directors. They should have been eggs-tatic to hear his plans. But they wouldn't listen. He'd been fried.

He'd egged their cars, too.

He'd tried to explain the situation to the eggs-ecutor of the estate, a butler who had clearly eggs-eeded his role.

He'd egged the whole mansion. (It had taken an eggs-travagent number of eggs.)

But no one would even listen to him! They'd forced him to become hard-boiled.

Well, he would show them!

He threw another egg at a passing car, because he could.

He was The Eggman!

When Bruce Wayne finally returned, he'd thought he'd finally shell out and give The Eggman his due. Instead, he'd cracked up.

He egged the Wayne mansion again.

Batman! Batman, was the new yolk of this city. The Batman would understand. He would listen to The Eggman once he got his attention.


	14. Firefly: Fragmented

Disclaimer: I don't own Firefly or Serenity. Alas, for not being Joss Whedon.

A/N: This was written in response to the prompt:  
>Firefly, River, She's freaked out by the hall of mirrors, house of horrors, etc.<p>

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><p><strong>Fragmented<strong>

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><p>The fragments of the world, distorted and fractured, come back together in perfect harmony. Not perfect. But almost. Almost harmony. Almost true.<p>

Re-distorted and un-distorted at the same time. Each fragment is placed back where it should go. The world almost fits together except for the seems between the mirrors.

Like a cobweb of lines showing the crazy where to be.

"River?"

"Where is that darned girl?"

"They got a freak show here, maybe we could sell her, and, OW!"

"Shut up."

The voices echo funny off the glass mazes and hurt the image.

"Shhhh!" She shushes the voices and the echos.

The echos listens. The voices don't.

"River? Is that you?"

Her world was carefully dissected by doctors and shattered by surgeries and stitched back together in weird places by drugs.

She's frozen in the center of the hall of mirrors. She isn't sure how she got here and ...

"River? River, come on..."

... she has to concentrate on not letting her brother pull her off balance.

If she moves the cobwebs will win and the fragments will fall apart.

"No! Simon, no! I'll shatter! I'll break into a thousand pieces and! And!"

"Shh, bao bei, I got you. You won't shatter. Close your eyes."

"But what if the cobwebs win?"

"Just close your eyes and I'll get you out of here."

The world goes away and she listens for the cobwebs and the shattering and the ending.

All she hears is the thump-thump of Simon's heart. It's a war drum to scare off the spiders.

When she opens her eyes again, there's the world in fragments around her and "The spiders won."

She's tired.

She rests her head on Simon's chest again and lets the war drums follow her into sleep.


	15. Hawaii Five0: Looking the Part

Disclaimer: I don't own Hawaii Five-0

A/N: This was written in response to the prompt:  
>Hawaii Five-0, Stevegirl!Danny + Grace, someone confuses Steve for Grace's dad

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><p><strong>Looking the part<strong>

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><p>Being with Steve was, in some ways, just as difficult as being with Richard had been. Steve was tall and slender and built and just plain gorgeous. Danny... wasn't.<p>

Danny was a short and loud-mouthed and no one at her old precinct had ever understood why tall handsome Richard with his gorgeous accent had ever dated much less married her. She doubted anyone at the new precinct would ever guess or even believe evidence that she was now with Steve.

She was fine with her body. She had a great body. When she dressed to impress, she was damned impressive. She had the kind of curves to make a grown man drool. (As the saying went: She was broad where a broad should be broad.) And she had a right hook that could take down criminals and drooling idiots alike.

But if she wanted to be taken seriously in the workplace she wore suits to cover the T&A and got right into people's faces with words and gestures. She was a detective and a good one, and if that meant that she was just one of the guys that was just fine.

But, well, there were trade-offs and even if she was happy with what she had, there were times when she was very aware of what she didn't.

No one, beside her, was surprised when Richard left her. She didn't look like someone who could be Richard's wife any more than she looked like someone who could be Steve's lover.

Which is why she's so surprised when the guy at the restaurant Steve was showing her and Grace had told Steve that "If your daughter get's bored, she can play in the courtyard while the food is prepared."

Steve had turned to ask Grace whether she wanted to play and Danny had just sat there, not sure what to say.

She was Grace's mother. That had to be obvious. Grace looked like Danny, or at least a lot more like Danny than she looked like Steve. Grace raced off to play, still in sight of their table, and Steve gave Danny a look.

"What?"

"You look like something happened. What's the matter?"

"The waiter thought you were Grace's father."

"Yeah?" Steve looked blank, like he didn't know where she was going with this.

"He thought we were Grace's parents. He thought we were a couple."

"Uh Danny, we are a couple. We're not exactly subtle about it."

"Oh come on, no one thinks we're a couple! We don't look like a couple!"

Steve looked blank again, but this time like maybe Danny had said the wrong thing. "_I_ think we look like a couple. I think we _are_ a couple."

Okay, maybe she had said the wrong thing, but still, she waved that away. "Yes, yes, we're a couple, but aside from the guys saying we argue like a married couple, we don't look like it. You know we don't."

Steve got one of those looks on his face. He checked to see that Grace was fine outside and not paying any attention to them at the window, which really should have been a clue that he was going to reach out and pull her into his lap.

She made an undignified squawk, and started telling him off.

He smiled at her and she paused her rant. It was a pause, not a stop, she wasn't sure if she was ready to stop, but... "What?"

"We definitely look like a couple."

And okay, Danny thought, sitting in his lap, enjoying the warmth of his hands on her hips, perhaps he had a point there.


	16. XMen: At least there wasn't a skirt

Disclaimer: I don't own the Marvel universe or any of the X-Men characters in particular.

A/N: This was written in response to the prompt:  
>X-men (any verse); girl!loganwolverine +/any character; she was gonna save the day wearing flannel and cowboy boots.

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><p><strong>At<strong> <strong>least<strong> <strong>there<strong> <strong>wasn't<strong> <strong>a<strong> <strong>skirt<strong>******************  
><strong>

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><p>Logan looked at the uniform they were trying to offer her. It was spandex.<p>

It looked stunning on Jean and Scott always looked like an underwear model anyway. But Logan herself was short and stocky and perfectly happy with how she looked but how she looked sure as hell wasn't wearing spandex.

She wore flannel because it was comfortable and cowboy boots because they were useful. And for all the snide comments she could hear, either because they wanted her to hear or because she had damned sharp hearing, it hadn't effected her feminine wiles any. When she wanted to sleep with a man, she told him so, and for the most part the guy said "Yes, ma'am!" and left the next morning tired but happy.

At least the costume didn't involve a skirt. Someone must have been bright enough to avoid that even if they weren't bright enough to avoid the costume entirely.

The Weapon X outfits had involved skirts.

Most of the experimental subjects at Weapon X had been female. It was for the first set of experiments after all, rather than trying to get anyone for real use, so women were the useful combination of having a higher pain threshold (due to the needs of childbirth) and being more biddable (due to being the gentler sex.)

That's what they thought, at least.

Miss Logan had been able to out-fight and out-drink every man she met since before she had been snatched by the program and by the time she had broken out she may have been a bit more broken than before but her sense of stubborn had just grown to fill the cracks.

She sure as hell wasn't going to obey their orders, she didn't obey society's either. And if Xavier thought he could order her into spandex, he had another think coming.

Sure, she had agreed to help save the day, but she'd damn well do it in her own flannel and boots.


	17. XMen: He is who he chooses to be

Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Men in any of their various incarnations

Author's Note: This was written in response to the prompt: X-men first class, erik/Charles, I am

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><p><strong>He is who he chooses to be<strong>

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><p>Charles has been a telepath for as long as he has lived, which is, at this point, only about a fourth of his memory. It was a much smaller percentage when he was younger, of course, and he finds himself somewhat grateful for the deaths that allow one generation to make way for the next. His memory goes as far back as the oldest living person in his vicinity and, if they had a particularly interesting or intense life, their memories may be duplicated over to his head so that they stay with him even when he leaves the area.<p>

Other kids talked about "finding themselves" when they were in their teenage years or early twenties. For Charles it had been an ongoing struggle to keep track of himself.

He finally decided on a set of characteristics that would define him as opposed to other people and he'd just live by that. His is a little half-cultivated half-wild garden within the ecosphere of human consciousness.

He's happy, he's hopeful, and he's definitely outgoing (even if he's a bit more out-going in the mental realm than he'd really like.) Sometimes he reviews his characteristics to decide if he needs to shift them around or make any changes, and if he decides he needs to, he does so.

His personality is what he has decided it is, as are the memories and experiences that have formed him into this.

He tries to be somewhat conservative about how he changes, since Raven had been upset by how much he'd changed by going to university. She had said he was like a different person and he hadn't known how to say that he both was and wasn't different. He'd changed who he was, but he had always been the person who changed like that. So now he tried to be more conservative but now there was Erik.

Oh Erik.

Where Charles thought his mind was kind of like an ecosphere, shifting depending on natural selection, Erik has a mind like a road. It went in only two directions and while there was scenery by the wayside, it was very determined to get where it was going.

Charles found himself tempted to travel that road. He'd just stick out his thumb and see if he could convince Erik to let him hitchhike for as long as it went.

It would be such a wonderful trip, but he held himself back. Instead he just added some of that determination to himself. Let himself become just a bit more focused on destination and the path from here to there. He didn't have a road like Erik, but he had a little path that paralleled Erik's.

Charles was delighted.

Except that Erik's road just kept going, straight ahead, and his own path was more twisting, opening up to admire a few scenic rest points and wending it's way around a few landmarks.

Erik thought there was a straight road to his destination but he was unique. No one else had a road like Erik did. The ones who came closest were saints and killers and almost all martyrs.

Charles knew how people thought and how they responded. He knew that Erik would declare war on humanity and humanity would see him as nothing more than a minor nuisance. Even with Charles at his side, they would be nothing to the ecosphere of human consciousness.

But if they were apart, in conflict with each other, if they took each other seriously, then their personal conflict could define the great societal conflict.

It is the best that he can do for Erik. But he knows that Erik won't understand anymore than Raven did.

He is both naive and cynical, knowledgeable and innocent. He is who he chooses to be and the he is the person who chooses at the same time.


	18. Person of Interest: Boughs of Holly

Disclaimer: I don't own Person of Interest (but I definitely recommend it because it is Awesome!)

Author's Note: This was written in response to the prompt:  
><em>Person of Interest, Reese + Finch, stolen Christmas decorations (Kudos if Reese has to dress as Santa Claus)<em>  
><em>[Okay, yes, crackfic inspired by a recent case of grinches stealing Christmas decorations and being caught on surveillance cameras]<em>

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><p><strong>Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly <strong>

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><p>There are two ways to watch someone in an unnoticed manner. The first and most obvious one is to hide: stay in the shadows and out of the subjects line of sight. Reese is good at this but there's a difference between good and god-like, and most people get that prickle on the back of their neck when they're being watched like this.<p>

The second method is to be obvious as all hell. The subjects sees you, sure, but they stop thinking about you pretty quickly. Reese isn't as comfortable doing this, but he certainly can. And at least Finch's comments in his ear keep him from going absolutely crazy (crazier) as he's standing next to the door to the subject's storefront, dressed like Santa and ringing a bell for donations.

Given that he's dressed as Santa, he feels it is only appropriate that he spends some of his time thinking about gifts to give away. Or at least, one gift to give the one person he to whom he wants to give a gift. (He's not giving Fuscu a gift.)

Given that his credit cards and identity information all came from Finch, Reese can't exactly purchase anything in secret. Given that Finch also performs surveillance on the entire city, he doubts he could buy anything in secret even if he had a personal credit card not set up by Finch.

The options are to (a) not give him anything, which Finch probably expects and that makes it all the more important for Reese to not do, (b) to buy him something and have it not be a secret, which really takes away half the fun of giving it to begin with, or (c) steal something, which seems like the best idea, really, but leads to the inevitable question of what to steal and from whom.

The problem of who wants to kill a sweet little shop keeper gets resolved sooner than the problem of what to do about a Christmas present for Finch, but nicely it all works out.

The guy who wants the shopkeeper dead has a rather beautifully decorated office, with a tree and lights and actual boughs of holly.

The people he passes on his way back from completing the job all smile at him as he whistles Christmas carols, dressed as Santa Clause with a bag full of decorations and a tree over his shoulder.

It's too bad he can't actually sneak down the Chimney into Finch's place, but the front door works just as well. And the look on Finch's face when comes down the next morning is absolutely priceless.


	19. xover Harry Potter and His Dark Material

Disclaimer: I own neither the Harry Potter universe nor the His Dark Materials concepts, but I do enjoy putting them together.

A/N 1: This was written in response to the prompt: Harry Potter/His Dark Materials, any, The day their daemon settles is during the first battle at Hogwarts (ala _Half-Blood Prince_). They don't notice until much, much later.

A/N 2: It's been a long time since I read Half-Blood Prince, so I don't remember the details of the battle, but I like the premise of this prompt.

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><p><strong>Coming of Age<strong>

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><p>Everything happened fast during the battle. There was no time for carefully thought out responses or communicating complicated plans. It was okay, though, because the DA had been training together for long enough that they knew each other instinctively.<p>

If there was no time for the fancy fighting techniques that involved daemons shifting mid-fight or complex charms and hexes, then at least their opponents didn't have time for that either, and their deamons were stuck as adults. The DA's daemons could choose their forms, and they chose them well. They took on the most powerful forms they could, the most vicious forms, the forms they were most deadly with in a fight.

And they were deadly.

Not one of their daemons came away from battle without blood on fangs or claws.

They fought and they killed and eventually they won.

But even winning, didn't seem like winning.

The battle was over, but the war was still going strong. There was no safety, no security. The kids stayed on edge, ready and waiting to be attacked. Their daemons didn't shift, didn't change into the small fuzzy animals they normally would have to provide comfort because there was no comfort in small and fuzzy anymore. The only comfort came in big and strong and powerful enough to defend and attack.

Their daemons didn't want to be defenseless ever again, they didn't want that either, and any adult who suggested they should be, was looked at with too-adult eyes and told "no."

It was choice and necessity that kept them deadly.

It as another year before any of them even considered an alternative and sometime in the interim, the choice had been made final. There was no going back now. They may or may not have settled in that first battle, with blood and smoke and death, but they never again changed after that.


	20. XMen: Worn down by time and metaphors

Disclaimer: I do not, alas, own the X-Men universe

A/N: This was written for the prompt: _X-Men First Class: Charles Xavier/Logan. He's not Erik, will never be...but eventually, it's become so much better_

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><p><strong>Worn down by time and metaphors<strong>

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><p>For all that Charles lay comfortably in Logan's arms, his thoughts laying just as comfortably in Logan's mind, he couldn't fall asleep.<p>

This wasn't the way it was supposed to work.

From the very first, Erik's mind had been the perfect fit for Charles. Erik's mind and Charles' had been like gears that worked together perfectly. Everything between them had been perfect then.

But like any perfectly fitting gears, there wasn't space for bits of dirt and sand to pass by without harming the whole machine. They had worn on each other and worn each other down, and by the end, Erik's mind had felt like something completely different. Like maybe all Charles had done to that fine piece of perfect machinery was to introduce wear and tear and make it grimy and dirty and broken in a way that not even Schmidt had managed.

For all Erik's toughness, he had been fragile in just the wrong places for Charles.

When it finally ended, all of his friends tried to be sympathetic and explain that Charles had been too good for Erik to begin with and Charles hadn't known how to explain that it was just the reverse. In the end, Erik had been the one to break it off with Charles, but Charles had been the one all through the time wearing down on Erik.

He had known his own self-destructive tendencies were in full force when he had rebounded with Logan.

Because from the start, Logan was all wrong for him. Logan's mind was like a rough landscape, with un-passable mountains and deep dark caves and more than a few wild beasts wandering around. There was nothing there to grasp, nothing he could work with and Charles had let his mind just fall like rain into Logan's mind. Accomplishing nothing much, just being there, because he wanted to be somewhere and if he couldn't fit together with Logan like he could with Erik, then at least he was welcome with Logan.

It took a long time, surprisingly long for him, who usually knew his own and other peoples' minds so very well, to realize that what he had with Logan wasn't a rebound any more.

His mind, falling like rain had found paths. And those paths were getting worn smooth and deep. He was wearing down on Logan just as he had worn down on Erik, except that Logan was nothing like Erik.

Logan's mind remained unique and vibrant and distinctly his even as Charles caused little changes. Logan wasn't being damaged by Charles' presence. He was primal in a way that Charles' mind barely touched the surface of. The more Charles looked, the more Logan was himself and self-sufficient and glorious and comfortable. Charles' wanted to stay there forever.

Logan laughter at Charles' metaphor sounded like rocks falling down a cliff. It was deep and rumble-y and potentially dangerous, like you weren't quite sure if it was fun or a threat to life and limb. A few of the rocks bounced into Charles' mind and made ripples shining with sunlight.

"You drunk, Chuck? Cause you're metaphors..."

"I am not. I am simply, unnerved by how we came to this. And where we will go from here."

"Huh. We came to this because we wanted to be here and we'll carry on as we have."

"That's... there's a lot of things that I could... do wrong."

"You worry too much."

"Most people tell me I don't worry enough."

"Not the same kind of worrying. You ever been to the Grand Canyon?"

"I've flown over it, several times, but gone to it just to see, no, I haven't."

"You could say that river was pretty destructive to the landscape, but I can't say it's a bad thing."

"But..."

Logan laughed again. "It also took a hell of a long time to do anything much. I'm not going anywhere and you aren't either. Go to sleep, Chuck.


	21. Marvel Universe: This is Not the End

Disclaimer: I own neither The Avengers nor the X-Men, nor any part of the Marvel Comic universe.

A/N: I desperately want a fix-it fic for The Avengers in which Phil Coulson does not die, but does not fully recover either. I mentioned this desire on my livejournal and had some discussion about it, during which I wrote a small drabble to whet the appetite. I want someone else to write more.

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><p><strong>This is not the end<strong>

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><p>Phil is at a cafe, sitting at one of their sidewalk tables, because now he suddenly has free time. He's drinking decaffeinated coffee because caffeine is bad for his heart and he's wondering if he's worth anything anymore now that he's been invalided out of all field assignments.<p>

He's wondering if he needs to start his whole life over like he's eighteen again except that now he's fifty with a bad heart and he's not sure if he can do it.

And then the most powerful mutant telepath in the world rolls up to his table. It's more than a bit terrifying because Phil has _secrets_, and Prof. X can read minds and leads a force that equals the Avengers and...

"Do you mind sharing your table for a bit?"

"Ah, no, of course not." Phil wonders if he's supposed to pretend that he doesn't recognize the other man.

Prof. X merely gets the waiter to bring him a cup of tea and they sit quietly for a bit just casually watching the people pass by. Or at least, Prof. X appears to be casually watching the people. Phil does his best to appear as if he is too, rather than showing exactly how hyper aware he is of everything going around him. He spots at least two other mutants who appear to be keeping an outer perimeter for their leader. He's not sure if this makes it more or less likely that the Professor is sharing a table with him by pure chance.

Phil is working on his third refill when Prof X finishes his cup of tea. He puts the cup down on the table along with a bill to cover payment and a tip, and then turns to Phil.

"You know," the Professor speaks as if they are in the middle of a conversation, "I was shot in the back when I was not yet thirty."

"Yes. I've read the reports." Phil does calm and steady when confronted with uncertainty and potential danger.

"It was not the end of my productive life," Prof. X points out dryly.

That is a rather pointed wake-up call.

The most powerful mutant leader, both in mutant power and in political power, rolls his wheelchair away from the table and sets off down the sidewalk before Phil can think of what to say in response.

Well, okay then.

Time to stop with the self-pity and get on with saving the world.


End file.
